Iraqi President Thanks Tony Blair
Arthur Chrenkoff’s biweekly roundup of “good news from Iraq” (also available here and here.) excerpts a striking and eloquent letter from new Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. (The complete text of the letter is here.)
I cannot begin to explain my emotions, after over five decades of personally fighting for and promoting democracy and human rights, to witness a nation take its first steps towards a dream.
Five decades is a long time for one person to fight. What for us in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere is the current political issue and a debate over the WMD version of “Where’s Waldo?” is for people in Iraq an epoch-making event, something they have been waiting and hoping for, and in some cases fighting for, their whole lives.
Now the democratically elected parliament has honoured me, a Kurd, with the post of Presidency. This is a symbol of the promise, integration and unity of the new Iraq.
I haven’t been able to get over the fact that while the Western media were getting all bent out of shape over whether the new Iraqi government would be dominated by the Sunnis or the Shiites, and whether the Sunnis would be controlled by the Saudis or the Shiites by the Iranians, but sure that either would oppress the Kurds — the Sunnis and Shiites got together and elected a prominent Kurdish leader as President.
The Left in the United States have spent the last two years explaining how the Iraqis (and Afghans) are not capable of democracy (what, are they genetically inferior?), but now they have shown that they are capable of peaceful political compromise. This is critical in an ethnically, religiously, and ideologically divided country. We Americans forget that the United States started out this way, too. The original thirteen colonies were divided by religion (mostly Congregationalist in the north, mostly Anglican in the South, with Catholics in Maryland and Quakers in Pennsylvania) and by economic interests (slave-based large-scale farming in the south, owner-based small-scale farming and manufacturing in the north), among other issues. The First Continental Congress almost fell apart before it started, due to a controversy as to what sort of minister should deliver the opening prayer. A compromise was reached in which the prayer was delivered by an Anglican from Philadelphia, Rev. Jacob Duche.
The Iraqis have, in effect, done the same thing. Rather than fighting over whether the country properly should be dominated by Sunnis or Shiites, they made a Kurd the President — which also neatly deals with the question of whether the Kurdish autonomous region should be part of Iraq. It will be.
The letter from Talibani concludes:
Iraqis sometimes wonder in amazement what the debate abroad is about. Why do people continue to ask why no WMD was found? The truth is that Saddam had, in the past, used chemical and biological weapons against his own people, and we believed he would do so again. Of course Saddam himself was, in the view of those who opposed him, Iraq’s most dangerous WMD.
Instead of continually focussing on the negative, the British, who will soon commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE day, should know that in the eyes of the majority of Iraqis, it was you who brought us our own victory day.
Britain should be proud that the liberation of Iraq has in our eyes been one of your finest hours. History will judge Prime Minister Blair as a champion against tyranny. Of that I have no doubt.
We are not reticent about expressing our great thanks to the British people and paying homage to the tragic British losses. Every Iraqi family, in fact, has lost a loved one because of Saddam’s regime. Every Iraqi understands the pain of conflict, the grief that accompanies war.
We honour those who sacrificed their lives for our liberation. We are determined out of respect to create a tolerant and democratic Iraq, an Iraq for all the Iraqi people. It will take time and much patience, but I can assure you it will be worth while, not only for Iraq, but for the whole of the Middle East.
The complete text of the letter is here.
The entire “Good News from Iraq” post is quite long. There’s a lot of good stuff going on in Iraq, and it is mostly not reported prominently in the western media.
